FLYING HOME: COVID testing, security, Greenland

Happy to see this sign on the way into Customs at SFO

Sun 29 May (written mostly on Sunday)

We're home! Back in Menlo Park. So many feelings... a lot of happiness and relief that things went so well. On the road, one always has a low level of background tension: tracking your stuff so you don't lose anything, navigating in new surroundings, making sure you make all your connections, hoping you don't get sick or have an accident. In a way, it's part of the excitement of traveling; you have to have a heightened sense of alertness. 

I'm very glad we never had a major mishap. We never missed a connection, we never showed up at a reserved hotel or b&b only to find they had no place for us, we didn't get COVID! Although Doug did get a sore throat, which bogged him down some the last week. The weather was amazingly cooperative. Although we had some overcast days, the most rain I remember was on our long driving day up to the Lake District, and we were in the car. We had many lovely, sunny days.  Thank you O travel gods, for being kind to us on this trip.

COVID testing

Our last day in England was basically devoted to getting ready to fly home. In the morning we went off to our COVID test appointments at 9:40am at a DAM testing facility. Doug had booked us there when it appeared that airport testing was going to cost £150 (though a friend says you can actually get it for £35), and also because Allison had mentioned you could get tested in London. Doug had looked for a place that seemed legit and did antigen testing, plus one that wasn't too expensive (~£23) and wasn't too far from us. The place he had settled on (and booked on Tuesday, our first night in London) was in Fulham Broadway, just 2 stops away from our home base of Earl’s Court. We left our hotel at maybe 9:15 and were back by 10:30ish, including getting a breakfast snack; Doug think the process itself, without the breakfast snack, probably only took 45 minutes. 

When we got to the testing location, it wasn't very busy but it was encouraging that there were at least some other people there on a Sunday morning. A family with kids was checking in ahead of us, and some folks followed us. Doug had already done the basic registration, but he needed to add a photo of me, so we took one there. The test itself went quite quickly; Doug believes that the test used was exactly the same as the home test kit he’d used on Wednesday, when we had the COVID scare. The only difference is that someone else is doing it, so presumably it’s harder to fake results. We left right after the test (they e-mail you results); we were only at the testing place for maybe 15 minutes total.

Since you're not supposed to eat for 30 minutes before testing, we hadn't had breakfast yet. We saw a Pret a Manger on our way back to the Tube  stop, and we had some quick breakfast snacks there. By the time we got back to our hotel, Doug had gotten the results by e-mail already, and we were both negative, as expected, yay! Doug still had the scratchy throat, runny nose, and cough that scared us on Wednesday, but we haven't had any further health changes, so we expected to pass. It would have been a major drag not to be able to fly today, but since we were pretty sure we’d be ok, we didn’t spend much time figuring out what we’d do in that case. We figured we’d cross that bridge when and if we came to it... (I found out later Doug had done a little bit of thinking about it; his backup thought was that if we needed to stay longer, he could book us at a less expensive Travelodge location.)

By noon we had checked out of our hotel, and we headed to Heathrow Airport. Our flight wasn't til 5:30, but there wasn't really time to do much, so we'd decided to go straight to Heathrow and try to do some last postcard writing there. We could get to Heathrow simply by taking the Piccadilly line there. 

Doc Check, Security

While I was finishing my last packing, from 11-12, Doug was entering our vaccination and testing status at a Virgin Atlantic "FlyReady" site. It basically collects all the info needed to document you've satisfied US requirements for re-entry. After Doug had entered all the info, in our hotel room, he got an e-mail about 15 minutes later, confirming that we were cleared. When we got to the airport, there was a "doc check" station for Virgin Airlines, where all we had to do was show the guy the e-mails and/or the app confirmation. Then he put a little sticker on the back of each of our passports, which served to show we'd been cleared for US re-entry. It definitely expedited things to have entered all our info online already. If you're curious to know more details about our COVID testing or FlyReady, Doug is the one to talk to.

After the doc check, we checked the bags we weren't carrying onboard, and then went through Heathrow security. I hadn't really thought about the fact that it might be different than security in US airports. It wasn't much different, but there were two differences: we didn't have to take off our shoes, and they really wanted all liquids/gels in a single plastic bag. They did provide bags but I hadn't taken one because I thought the clear case I usually use would suffice; I ended up doing a hurried last minute transfer into an extra ziploc bag I had. Doug had stuff in two plastic bags but needed to consolidate into one. I went through security fine, but Doug did have to go through extra screening, including a full-body pat down and some sort of monitoring device run around his shoes. Fortunately they did let him pass in the end, and we ended up with about 2.5 hours of airport downtime before boarding.

Flying

The flight home was much more comfy than the flight over, due largely to one unexpected boon: Economy was far from full on our flight—I heard a flight attendant say there were something like 100 empty seats. After takeoff, a number of people reseated themselves, including the aisle seat guy in our row, so we had the entire three-seat row to ourselves. It was great. Not only did we have more room, but with fewer people, the bathrooms are free more of the time. The sound of the announcement system was also better than on the trip over. The sound through the supplied headphones (to watch movies/TV) was still not that great; I think the best strategy if you want to listen is to bring your own headphones/earbuds.

One of the interesting things about long flights is seeing how food and sleep is managed. Our flight went from 5:30pm to about 4:30am London time. The following times are all London time, to keep things simple. We got served three meals: dinner around 7pm; a late snack, if you were awake, around 11pm, and "afternoon tea" at 2:30am, a couple of hours before landing. We also got a fruit popsicle at 10:15pm! The lights were dimmed on the plane from roughly 9pm to I think 3am. 

The most efficient flight path from London to San Francisco is to fly northward, across Greenland and Canada. We also flew at 40,000 feet, avoiding most weather system issues. Our entire flight was in daylight, so I looked forward to being able to see Greenland. However they dimmed the inside lights during part of the trip (so people could sleep), and with the Dreamliner aircraft we were on, they also dim the viewing windows (darn!). I couldn't see Greenland as well as I would like to have, but it was still exciting to see it. 

The photos below are dimmer and bluer because the window itself was dimmed. The one on the left is of the western edge of Greenland, as we go past it; the other is of ice chunks at the top end of Canada (click on any photo to see a larger version of it).

Landing, customs

We touched down at SFO at about 8:20pm California time (4:20am London time), just as the sun was setting. I remember in the past having to fill out a customs form on the plane, but things are different now, at least at SFO, and pretty streamlined. The process itself is fast, but there were lots of incoming people, from multiple flights, at the time we landed; most of the time it took was waiting in line. You are channeled into a room with dozens of little kiosks (you can't take photos there or I'd probably have taken a photo). You wait for a free kiosk; then at the kiosk, you scan your passport in, take a photo of yourself, and answer something like six questions—the kind of questions that were previously on the paper form. I don't remember all of them, but here are a few I remember:

• Are you bringing in any commercial products? (We assumed this meant stuff to sell.)
• Are you bringing in more than the allotted $800 in duty-free gifts/purchases?
• Are you bringing in any prohibited agricultural products? (The actual question spelled it out more.)

At the end you can add who you're traveling with, so we could've done it together at one kiosk, but we didn't know that. Then the kiosk prints out a little receipt, which includes a grainy version of the photo you just took, your passport number, other info, and for each question, whether you said Y or N. A woman collects your receipt. If you had N for all questions, you're done; otherwise she shunts you over to an agent to deal with you in person. After that, we waited for our bags. Once we had our bags, Doug called for a Lyft. I think that was at 9:30ish, so the customs and baggage claim took an hour or so.

It was quite chilly at SFO, waiting for our Lyft; chillier than I remember being during most of our trip. We were home by 10:10pm California time.

Next posts

For the next few days, I will continue posting some summary reflections and highlights of the trip; things I wasn't able to cover along the way, especially food and signs. I may also reflect on what we did right and what, if anything, we would do differently next time. I appreciated getting some hellos and commentary from people; please continue to do so.  It's nice to hear from people.

My friend who lived near London for several years made a few fun comments on the blog itself; if you're curious to read those, you need to go directly to the blog site itself (https://england2022.blogspot.com) or at the end of the blog e-mails, if you click on "Continue reading" it will take you to the blog website. At the end of each post it indicates whether or not there's a comment. 

Last, but definitely not least, thanks to Doug, who made it all happen, and Allison, who gave us the reason for going. ♥

On the plane.
In general, Doug was more cautious
about masking than I was. He also didn't
want to spread his sore throat germs.